Grammar has been a significant part of my growth as a human being. As a child of immigrants, my journey with grammar has almost always been independent and as complex as one could imagine. The earliest memory I have with English grammar was in the first grade. My teacher, Mrs. Nagles, constantly advised me to read. She would give me books to read every week. I knew she genuinely cared for my education and wanted me to grow as a reader and writer. She would write encouraging notes inside the cover of my books that said, “Jamie, you have so much potential to grow as a reader and writer! Never stop reading. You’re going to grow so much. You already have,” or something of that sort. Being the shy child that I was in elementary, I rarely spent time playing with my two friends so I would read. A lot. That’s where it all began.
Since then, I have advanced tremendously. Reading and writing have been an outlet for me, especially as a victim of bullying in my childhood. I turned to reading for escape and turned to writing for comfort. The more I wrote, the more my grammar improved. I wanted to grow not just for myself but for my parents. I needed to be as accurate as possible because my parents needed my help. My parents became foster parents when I was six years old. Part of being foster parents meant they needed to write weekly reports about the foster children in my home. English is not their first language so as I got older, they really depended on me to revise their reports and write them too. That meant I had to work twice as hard in school; I was in all the advanced reading and writing classes in elementary school. I had to learn how write professionally for my parents’ reports.
I will admit… There has always been an underlying pressure to succeed, to assimilate, to be an American. It has been a burden but it has pushed me to be a better English reader and writer. It’s been a necessity for me to succeed because my family has always struggled. I want to make this life better for them because they do their best to make it better for me. I never want them ever worry. Being an excellent writer has allowed me to be an even finer student in all of my classes. I am still growing and I will never stop learning.